Center for Reproductive Rights secures major victory for Mississippi women, ensuring last abortion clinic in state will remain open; Mississippi abandons defense of measure 8 months after Supreme Court issues historic ruling striking Texas’ similar clinic shutdown law and reaffirming a woman’s right to safe, legal abortion

03.17.17 -

(PRESS RELEASE) A federal district court permanently blocked Mississippi’s Texas-style clinic shutdown law today, ensuring the last abortion clinic in
the state will remain open. Today’s ruling comes just 8
months after the Supreme Court issued its historic ruling in Whole
Woman’s Health v Hellerstedt, which struck Texas’ nearly-identical clinic shutdown law as unconstitutiona and reaffirmed a woman’s right to safe, legal abortion.

Mississippi continued to defend its
clinic shutdown law—which requires any physician associated with an
abortion facility to have admitting privileges at a local hospital—until
earlier this month despite the Supreme Court ruling in Whole Woman’s
Health. Mississippi recently abandoned its defense
of the measure, admitting Mississippi “cannot identify any meaningful
distinction between the Texas admitting privileges law struck down
in Hellerstedt and the admitting privileges requirement of H.B.
1390.”

Said
Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights:

"Today's
ruling is the latest victory for women's health and rights--and it
will not be the last. Our landmark win at the Supreme Court last summer
continues to reverberate across the nation. Any politician trying to
roll back women's constitutional rights should take notice and remember
the law is on our side."

The
Center will continue to challenge
Mississippi’s unconstitutional requirement prohibiting most physicians
from providing abortion care at an abortion facility by allowing
only board-certified or board-eligible obstetrician-gynecologists to
provide such care. Mississippi is the only state in the
country that has such a requirement.

The Center
for Reproductive Rights filed a legal challenge to
both the admitting privileges and ob-gyn requirements in 2012 on behalf of the
Jackson Women’s Health Organization—the last remaining abortion clinic in
Mississippi—and Dr. Willie Parker. A federal district court partially
blocked the admitting privileges requirement in July 2012 and later
fully blocked the admitting privileges requirement in April 2013—barring
the state from enforcing it pending the outcome of the litigation. Neither
court order involved the ob-gyn requirement, which has been in effect since
July 2012. A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit heard arguments on
the district court’s preliminary injunction of the admitting privileges
requirement in April 2014 and upheld the
injunction blocking the law in July 2014.

In
November 2014 the Fifth Circuit refused
to reconsider its decision to continue to block the law; in February 2015,
the state of Mississippi requested the
U.S. Supreme Court review the Fifth Circuit’s ruling. Over a year and a half
later—and only one day after ruling that Texas’ clinic shutdown law was
unconstitutional—the Supreme Court refused
to review the measure, ensuring the last clinic in the state could
remain open while the legal challenge continued. Despite the ruling
in Whole Woman’s Health, Mississippi continued to defend its
admitting privileges requirement until March 2017.